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The Tourist Guide
Meg and I used to spend a lot of time tracing old neolithic dolmens and court graves. We
would study a section of the large scale ordnance survey map, mark all ancient monuments, pack a
picnic and spend the rest of the day hunting history: a very pleasurable past time.
One day we found ourselves halfway up a hill at a cross road, not quite sure where to go. We
climbed out of the car to investigate the landmarks, when a small tail wagging border collie joined us - one of the friendliest collies I haver ever met. We ritually said hello for the next five
minutes and admired our new friend, who was all white with only a few black patches.
Only after we had decided that we would have to turn to the right, did we see a small overgrown
notice pointing in that direction, informing the passer-by of the way to the dolmen. Signs
pointing to ancient monuments are very rare in Ulster, which raised our expectations. We
got back into the car and drove down a narrow path until we were stopped by a gate. There
was no sign of our new white and black friend. Opening the gate, we drove up a small path
so narrow, that the hedges on either side scratched hundreds of pounds worth of re-sale
value off the sides of our car within the first minute. We ended up in the yard of an abandoned
farm, the Ulster country side is full of such lonely places.
It was quite dark because the place was in the shade of some fine old trees, the old
farmhouse was now a shed and three or four gates led in different directions - any one of
which could lead to the dolmen. The fields were very muddy and we didn't really like to
stalk over them up to our knees in mud only to find that we had taken the wrong direction.
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